"AI Won't Take Your Job. But Invisibility Will." Listen to Shantel's Career Success Story.

Summary

The Top 5% Method® with Katheline Jean-Pierre

Episode: "AI Won't Take Your Job. But Invisibility Will." Listen to Shantel's Career Success Story.
Date: October 21, 2025
Guest: Chantelle Love, Executive at Pearson & Author of "Promote Your Damn Self"

---

Overview

This episode delves into why invisibility, not AI, is the real threat to career advancement and how personal branding, proactive self-promotion, and strategic visibility can propel professionals—especially women and underrepresented groups—into the top echelons of their fields. Katheline Jean-Pierre welcomes Chantelle Love to discuss hard-earned wisdom on cultivating impactful visibility, actionable steps for professional growth, lessons from layoffs, and the entrepreneurial journey of turning expertise into a brand asset. The conversation mixes personal narrative, practical frameworks, and empowering advice for building a resilient and recognizable career identity.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Chantelle’s Background and Motivation

• Career Journey:
  • 20 years in sales, managed over $1 billion in business—“That’s B as in bold, beautiful, and bodacious.” (Chantelle Love, 00:14)
  • Laid off after long tenure, no personal brand, limited external network.
• Core Expertise:
  • Focus on employee engagement (top 5% in Gallup rankings), personal branding, and speaking at major organizations (Disney, AWS, etc.).
  • "Companies bring me in to speak on manager effectiveness, AI fluency, and to run my enterprise personal brand lab.” (01:42)

2. The Central Threat: Invisibility, Not AI

• “AI will not take your job, but invisibility will.” (Chantelle Love, 04:11)
• Research: Women lose over $782,000 due to the visibility gap over their careers (Stanford Business School).
• “Hard work alone won’t make you visible. You need a strategy for visibility with those who control power and influence.” (04:18)

3. Top Five Steps to ‘Promote Your Damn Self’

1. Be Proactive, Not Perfect

• “Start! Don’t worry about perfection.” (06:42)
• Progress, not perfection—posting online or simply sharing wins with your boss is a vital start.

2. Document Your Impact

• “Quantify everything: revenue saved, generated, time saved.” (07:49)
• Keep a weekly ‘win list.’ "You’ll have 52 wins for interviews, reviews, or pitches." (08:40)

3. Connect Before You Need It

• “Build networks now, not when desperate.” (09:48)
• Value in connection can be an introduction, sharing resources, or ideas—not always a direct quid pro quo.

4. Tell Stories, Not Stats

• “Stats impress, stories stick and sell.” (11:37)
• “It’s okay to share mistakes and what you learned—people relate to experience more than titles.” (11:37)

5. Repeat Yourself Relentlessly

• “Be so bored of your own story you think you’re repeating yourself too much—algorithms guarantee most people haven’t heard it yet.” (13:09)
• Leverage repetition in one-on-ones and public forums to cement your narrative in others’ minds.

Memorable Quote:
“Your voice and your value and your visibility is actually currency.” (Chantelle Love, 03:24)

---

4. Strategic Career Advancement and Personal Brand Audits

• Treat Your Job as Your Investor:
  • “Your job isn’t your family—it’s your first investor.” (16:02)
  • Seek skills and opportunities that grow you beyond your current role.
• Agreement Before the Project:
  • “Before I agree to a stretch project, we define what promotion looks like, how we’ll check in, and how success is quantified—all in writing.” (18:09)
• Don’t Wait to Build a Brand:
  • “Don’t wait until you’re overlooked or laid off to build your brand.” (16:50)
• Audit Your Brand:
  • Three-level “ask” campaign: peer, manager, senior leader. Compare perceptions to identify your reputation gap (21:00).
  • “Set up a 15-minute coffee chat and ask: ‘What unique value do I bring to the organization?’” (20:59)

---

5. Getting Honest Feedback in a Masked Workplace

• Navigating Masked Feedback:
  • “If feedback feels generic or fake, press: ‘Can you help me understand how you came to that conclusion? Can you give examples?’” (26:38)
  • Pre-empt meetings with agenda and specific feedback questions.
  • Document everything, especially if someone controls your advancement (27:31)
• Emotional Intelligence:
  • “One of the Four Agreements is don’t take anything personally—the people at work know you only in that context.” (24:09)
• Leveraging AI:
  • Use ChatGPT as a ‘career coach’ to process and respond to feedback. (25:01)

---

6. Building a Thought Leadership Platform: Publishing a Book

• Self-Publishing for Ownership:
  • “I chose self-publishing so I fully own my IP and royalties; I’m not leasing out my brilliance.” (29:11)
  • “If you use Amazon’s free ISBN, you’re locked into selling only on Amazon.” (29:34)
  • Buying your ISBN ($150) = true publishing control.
• Turning a Book into an Asset:
  • “My book is my best business card—it works for me when I’m sleeping.” (32:08)
  • Bulk sales to organizations, not just individuals.
• Mistakes and Lessons:
  • Biggest mistake: Not realizing marketing is harder than writing. “Marketing starts before the launch and is ongoing.” (35:20)

---

7. Book Marketing Strategies

• Advance Reviews/Community Engagement:
  • Gather a pre-launch community for feedback and endorsements. (38:07)
• Solve a Real Problem:
  • Position the book as a solution for organizations and affinity groups.
• Give Away the Best Chapter:
  • “I give away my best chapter—how to monetize your expertise—for free. That creates demand for the whole book.” (38:47)
• Realistic Numbers:
  • “Most books sell fewer than 1,000 copies. In my first year, I sold 4,500 by bulk sales, not relying on social media alone.” (40:10)

---

8. Career Portfolio and Multiple Revenue Streams

• Portfolio Professionalism:
  • Chantelle runs a speaking/writing company and a real estate business.
• Transparent Revenue Growth:
  • Year 1: $24,000
  • Year 2: $77,000 (bulk book sales, smarter positioning) (43:51)
• Advice for Aspiring Speakers:
  • “Apply to call-for-speakers events—didn’t work for me.”
  • “Leverage your existing industry. Speak at industry events for free at first, get recordings, build a reel.” (44:55)
  • Use women’s/industry networks for warm introductions and referrals.

---

9. Launching a Podcast

• Upcoming Show:
  • “I Promoted My Damn Self” podcast will feature reader success stories and amplify the book’s impact. (46:32)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Invisibility:
  • “AI will not take your job, but invisibility will.” (04:11)
• On Building Your Value:
  • “You wouldn’t launch a startup then wait until you’re broke to find funding—but that’s what people do with their careers.” (16:58)
• On Feedback:
  • “Don’t take anything personally. Your colleagues only know the ‘at work’ version of you.” (24:09)
• On Ownership:
  • “Too many people lease out their brilliance. I chose ownership intentionally.” (29:20)
• On Book as Business Tool:
  • “My book is the only business card people pay for that they never throw away.” (34:38)
• On Speaking:
  • “Most speaking gigs came from people who saw me in communities or organizations, not cold applications.” (44:56)

---

Important Timestamps

• 00:00-01:40 — Chantelle’s introduction, personal journey, and focus on personal branding.
• 03:03-05:41 — The real danger: invisibility, not AI; strategies for building visibility.
• 06:42-14:27 — Step-by-step guide: The Top 5 Ways to Promote Yourself.
• 16:01-20:09 — Strategic self-advocacy: owning your career journey, and building a personal brand before a crisis hits.
• 20:59-26:38 — How to audit your brand; getting real and unvarnished feedback.
• 29:11-38:07 — Self-publishing: Ownership, royalties, and turning your expertise into an asset.
• 38:47-40:12 — Marketing a book: strategies that work, stats about book sales, and aligning book value with organizational pain points.
• 43:51-44:55 — Building a six-figure side business, leveraging speaking, and best practices for landing gigs.
• 46:32 — Announcing the new podcast, “I Promoted My Damn Self.”

---

Episode Takeaways

• Visibility is your survival strategy in the AI era.
• Quantify, document, and repeatedly communicate your wins.
• Build relationships and networks before you need them.
• Own your intellectual property—it’s leverage for future growth.
• Book marketing is about connection, community, and solving real problems—social media alone isn’t enough.
• Proactive self-advocacy and negotiation are non-negotiable if you want to move into the top 5%.
• Strategic feedback gathering is key to continuous personal brand improvement.
• Monetize your expertise creatively—speaking, writing, coaching, all feed the same brand ecosystem.

---

For More:

• Check out Chantelle Love’s book "Promote Your Damn Self" and the “Enterprise Personal Brand Lab” mini-course.
• Keep an eye out for her upcoming podcast spotlighting audience impact stories.

---

End of summary.

Transcript

[Chantelle Love]

There are so many ways you can promote your damn self. And I know for me I used to be the hardest working invisible person that you've ever met. I spent my two decade career in sales and I managed well over $1 billion. That's B as in bold, beautiful and bodacious. I managed well over $1 billion in my sales career. Then I got laid off. I didn't have a personal brand, I didn't have a network outside of my job and I did not know how to negotiate a 10%. Not because I didn't know, but it's. I just didn't have the words, I didn't have the confidence and I did not frankly know how to vocalize my value. So I honestly believe that the best way to promote yourself.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

Softel how are you? Welcome to the podcast.

[Chantelle Love]

I am doing very great. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited about this and I missed.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

You so much because I was at Sisters and sales and I was like, I wish we could have hung out and just caught up in person.

[Chantelle Love]

I know I was there in spirit and everyone who spoke about how you killed it made me even more jealous. But I missed you there too.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

Thank you. I love to hear it. I never know what the feedback is, but I like to host very like engaging workshops. So I'm excited to hear that. Before our audience doesn't know all your greatness, can you please tell me about yourself?

[Chantelle Love]

Absolutely. I am Chantelle Love. I'm a speaker executive at Pearson and author of Promote youe Damn self. And in 2025 HR number one priority was employee engagement and that's my lane. I marry my expertise of employee engagement as I AM G in Gallup's top 5% of most engaged teams. I marry that with personal branding to drive peak performance in organizations. I've spoken at companies like Walt Disney World, Amazon Web Service, Re Invent Conference, and I'll be the closing keynote at Customer Contact week in October. And companies typically bring me in to speak on manager effectiveness and AI fluency and to run my enterprise personal brand lab where employees learn how to become visible leaders without leaving their company.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

I love it. I'm so excited. I watch your your promo reel. I also started watching your reveal your Amazon AWS presentation. So I'm I feel the vibe. It's a good vibe and I have so many questions for you. So let's get jump into it. So you wrote this book that's called Promote your damn Self and I started reading it and there's a couple of things I want to talk about, but how does one today, like in this landscape, there's a lot of things happening. How do you promote your damn self?

[Chantelle Love]

There's so many ways you can promote your damn self. And I know for me, I used to be the hardest working invisible person that you've ever met. And I spent my two decade career in sales and I managed well over $1 billion. That's B as in bold, beautiful and bodacious. I manage well over $1 billion in my sales career. Then I got laid off. I didn't have a personal brand, I didn't have a network outside of my job, and I did not know how to negotiate a 10% pay increase. It's not because I didn't know, but I just didn't have the words, I didn't have the confidence and I did not frankly know how to vocalize my value. So I honestly believe that the best way to promote yourself is to think about your future self and to understand that the best advocate, the best voice and the best person to vocalize your value is you and your voice and your value and your visibility is actually currency. I saw a stat recently from Stanford Business School that said specifically women lose over $782,000 over the course of their career because of the visibility gap.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

Wow.

[Chantelle Love]

Yes, I know.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

Because they're not good news.

[Chantelle Love]

Yes, it's not good news. And I think to myself about that stat because there are a lot of professionals, a lot of women, a lot of just people in general that believe their hard work will get them known. And if you don't have a strategy around, how do you make yourself visible to the people who have power, influence and authority to promote you? If you're afraid to post your facts on how you're performing in your career on spaces like LinkedIn, if you're not Googleable and what I mean by that, if you're not submitting and sharing your thought leadership and white papers and taking opportunities like this to be on podcasts, your voice only goes as far as you allow it. And it's important in this day and age with the AI takeover to understand that AI will not take your job, but invisibility will. So having a strategy on how to become more visible, being bold and brave on showing up on spaces like LinkedIn and raising your hands for projects and stretch initiatives within your organization will be the key differentiator. And also some really critical starting points. And building your personal brand and a brand that speaks for you when you're not in the room.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

I love it. I Feel like you just dropped all the different bombs and dropped them. Okay, let's, let's unpack. There's a lot to unpack. So it's so like I see myself in you because I've coached a lot of different women especially and people of color to or even people who are nerded. Anybody who's not comfortable talking about their accomplishment, I've coached them and I'm really hearing what you're saying. It seems like you had a shake up moment in your life where you were laid up and then you had a realization and you don't wish for anyone that to happen to anyone. Right? So let's break it down. So there's a couple of things that we said, but I want to make sure that we get like the numbered version because people are like, ah, I need to do this. Where do I start? What is. If you have to prioritize the first thing you would start. If you need to start, go from invisibility. Invisibility. What is the first thing? And then book 2, 3, 4, 5. Because think about the world of somebody who doesn't post online, who doesn't know where their brand is. Where do you start?

[Chantelle Love]

Yeah, I would say start with being proactive, not perfect. And what I mean by that is begin to think about the what and the why it is okay, if you're saying that I want to make more money, that's your why. If your why is I want to climb the corporate ladder or I want to start my side hustle, be proactive in that and begin to think how you can add value in that space. So be proactive, don't worry about being perfect. It's okay to start at 70% or 40% of your perfection is just about starting.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

I love it. So tip number one is just get started.

[Chantelle Love]

Yep.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

Right. Get started. And I think it's something that you said before is articulating your value. So it's your accomplishments. If you're not comfortable posting your accomplishments on LinkedIn, that's a bold step. But what about even posting your accomplishments? Like telling your boss your accomplishments one on one or even like sharing them in different forums internally at a company, that could be the first step is just progress, not perfection. And then being clear about your value. What's the second one?

[Chantelle Love]

The second one is document your impact. And what I mean by this is it's not that I'm great and I'm awesome. You want to document your impact and quantify every single thing. As an executive, your message is not magnetic. If it does not attach to revenue saved, revenue generated, time saved. So you want to get into the practice of quantifying your impact. And this can be as simple as, you may have done a team building, right? And people may say, okay, team building is a pizza party. But when you look at stats around team building and employee retention and employee engagement, you can pull from other people's expertise in white papers to articulate and vocalize the value of something as simple as a team building. So get into the habit of documenting your impact, documenting your wins. And I encourage my mentees to actually do it once a week at least. And if you think about it from that perspective, documenting your wins once a week, even if it's just one week, one win per week. Over the course of a year, you will have 52 wins. 52 wins that you can use in a job interview, a performance review, a pitch, a promotion. You can use it outside of work as well. If you're on a podcast or asked to speak on a stage or ask to contribute to a magazine article, it gives you something to pull from versus having to create from scratch.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

That's important. Documenting your impact as a step, second one. And having a written. If you're not, if you don't know how to do it, I would add, like, maybe leverage a smart goal methodology or even go and ask ChatGPT, like, how do I. What are the metrics I could surface if I organize the event to be able to document my impact. So that's just it here. I just created a random prompt. Okay, what's number three?

[Chantelle Love]

Yes, I love that. So number three is connect before you need it. What I noticed is that when I started my personal brand, I was desperate. I mean, I was so desperate. And when I realized that this could be a business, most of my clients actually were colleagues that came to me out of desperation where they were laid off and didn't know where to start. So I highly recommend, if you're employed, if you're transitioning a job, starting a side hustle, connect with people who are doing the things that you aspire to do. Connect with them now. Build that relationship. And don't build a relationship on what you want. Build a relationship that is mutually beneficial. And what that looks like is what you can offer them in exchange for what they can offer you. And some people think to themselves, I have nothing to offer. Yes, you do. So even if it's sharing an article or saying, hey, I saw this person or I met this person, I think you all would be a good connection with each other. Understand that value is. Can look like a connection. Value can look like sharing someone else's thought leadership or white paper. Value is what builds a relationship and building those connections before you need it. Because you don't want to come to someone and say, hey, I haven't spoken to you in 20 years. Can you recommend me for this job that does not go over well. So begin to build that. That network when you're not desperate.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

No, I think that's so important because nobody likes. I don't want to say this word, but nobody wants to feel used, right? So it's like you never, ever, ever, ever talk to someone and then suddenly you reach out because you need a favor. So I think keeping your network alive and building that connection forward. What would be the fourth one to be able to promote to themselves?

[Chantelle Love]

The fourth one is tell stories, not stats. Oftentimes people believe that just because you have a whole lot of letters behind your name, you have titles and credentials that that matters. It really doesn' relate to people who they can see themselves in. And I typically start my story off by my experience and more people can see themselves in the experience versus the title. So share those stories about your victories and be okay with sharing some bit of vulnerability, but don't share anything that you haven't healed from because you don't want anyone to weaponize that against you. But it's okay to share that you messed up on a project and then share what you learned. If you're thinking about growing in your career as a hiring manager and an executive, I will hire someone that made a mistake and learn from it. And we're able to create processes and workflows as a result of that lesson learned versus someone who's pristine and perfect, who's never made any mistakes. So you want to tell stories because stats may impress, but that story, it sticks and it sells.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

Yeah, I love it. I think it's so, so important. And I love the part about you want to tell a story, you want to heal family. Weaver shares the same. It's like you want to share events and happenings after the fact such that you have to share it as a learning and not like you just have this raw emotional outburst. That's brilliant. And what would be the last tip that you have to promote your damn self.

[Chantelle Love]

So the last one is probably going to rub someone the wrong way, but I want to say it anyway. Number five is repeat yourself time and time and time again. The way that I was able to 10x my income in less than 5 years was because I was under the impression that when someone said no, it didn't mean no indefinitely. It meant no, not right now. Right. So for me, as I was vocalizing my value, I went through six or seven different managers and I had to repeat my value, repeat the contribution, repeat the impact that I made. And that's the same when it comes to personal branding, be it as an entrepreneur or be it as an employee who's building their brand on social media or on the world Wide Web. You want to become so bored with repeating yourself that you're like, man, I'm saying the same things over and over again. Because when you think of the way that most algorithms work, only a fraction of likely less than 10% of the people are seeing what you're posting and you're missing out on that 90%. So you want to repeat yourself and cycle your signature stories, your signature impact until they stick.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

No, I think that's amazing advice. And it feels like it's like your own hit song. So you want to. What's your favorite song or whatever song that. That comes to mind? Like, let's say, like, I'm going to be fuller oldie, like Real Love. I'm searching for the real, but I didn't have to Google it. I didn't have to search for it. That's a hit. So I think that's. It's. I love what you say. Because people don't realize that the difference between those who get ahead and who don't get ahead is that they leverage their manager. They keep repeating their accomplishments. I had, I had a one on one with one of my former reports. Every one on one. The top of the. The top of the one on one document was promotion. Update on promotion. I'm like, hey, we talked about it last week, but I want to make sure. Have you read my packet? Have you? Yes, I did. But I think it's important because when the promotion committee gets together, imagine the committee like senior people. Your manager doesn't know exactly your accomplishment by heart almost. Then it's going to be harder for them to articulate your value. And so this one is gold. Thank you so much. You're welcome. So I want to move on and talk a little bit about what are your career advice to get ahead. Because you started. You've been over 11 years at Pearson, a Net company, and now you're. Because some success. That's quite an accomplishment. Can you tell us, like, how did you get ahead so that people can learn from your own journey in.

[Chantelle Love]

Yeah, absolutely. I'll start with the truth that no one talks about. When you think about your career and the people that you work with, and when you think about your job, your job isn't your family, it's your first investor. When I think about it from that perspective, I think about where are the opportunities that I can leverage my investor to strengthen my skill set or introduce me to the future of work or the skills that are needed for the future of work, or what skills can I learn outside of the organization that will grow my influence, grow my power, grow my impact, be it inside or outside of the organization? And I think of myself and I typically tell the audiences that I speak in front of, I think of me, Chantelle Love as a business. And you wouldn't launch a startup and wait until you you're broke to find the capital, right? You would not do that in a startup company. Yet what I realized is that professionals, they wait until they're overlooked or they laid off to build their brand. And that is what led me to write promote your damn self. Because I was constantly waiting for someone to advance my career. And it was over the course of the last nine, 10 years, I had nine different managers. And I kept rotating through the different managers and trying to convince them of how amazing and how great I was and was working hard and long hours. And I was just like, this isn't working. So I had to try something different. And I started to think from their perspective, not my perspective, what do they need to be successful because they have someone that they need to answer to? What are they not thinking about that I know of because I've been there longer than them and I made myself the most valuable and vocal person at the same time and made sure that I was having timestamps and asking for deliverables. So if I'm placed on a project, I would ask, okay, when this project is done, how do we evaluate my promotion or my next steps? Does that look like what are our check in frequencies are going to look like? How do we quantify the impact? And I do all of that before I sign up for a project. Sign up for a stretch goal, I make sure that I have an agreement on the front end. So even if they left, we have something in writing that someone else can pick up on. And I believe that this is important and I detail some of this and promote your damn self. And I find myself walking readers through how to align their expertise with their company goals. So if they decide to build a personal brand or a side hustle, it's not starting from scratch. A lot of people think that if I'm going to do a side hustle, I need to go back to school and I need to learn something different. No, you don't do what you've done well your entire career, your entire life. Because it's a win win. It's a win win because you're advancing in your career. You're building a brand for yourself and you're building a brand for your company. And I say this because one of the biggest mistakes high performers make is thinking that hard work automatically equals recognition. And it does.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

No, it does not.

[Chantelle Love]

It does not. But like for me, in my example, if leadership keeps changing, your results can be erased overnight. And that's why I created the companion to promote your damn self. I created a free four week mini course called the Enterprise Personal Brand Lab. And it's just four weeks. And I walk you through how to audit your current reputation, how to craft your brand story that sticks with decision makers, how to show up in the right rooms without burning out, because we all know that that can happen. And how to tie your personal brand directly to enterprise results. It's, it's short, it's actionable, and it's completely free. And I'll be sure to drop it in the show notes so that you can make that progress over the next four weeks.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

I think that's amazing. And so your journey to become a VP at Pearson is through a lot of self advocacy. And you've been very strategic because you, I feel like you've been negotiating at every single step because sometimes people don't negotiate and they think, they think that somebody miraculously molds you. The reality is like, every interaction is a negotiation.

[Chantelle Love]

It is. Every single one.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

And it's for those who have kids among us, right, the kiddos. It's. Every interaction is a negotiation. So think about that in your career where it's like, mommy, I want this, I want that, I want this, I want that. I'm like, whoa, what are you going to do in exchange? I think that's so important. So can you tell us a little bit more about how do you audit the personal brand? How do you audit your.

[Chantelle Love]

Yeah. So I think one of the simplest ways, the way that I think about how to audit the personal brand without an assessment or without having to get certified is really assessing and thinking about what are people saying about you in rooms that you're not in. And you can do a simple ask campaign. And I typically layer the ask campaign in three levels so you can ask a peer, what do you believe my Strengths are right or what do you. What value do you believe I bring to the organization that no one else does? So ask a peer and then you'll ask someone that's slightly above you, like a manager or a director, depending on the size of your organization. And then if you have proximity to someone who's at a vice president or a C suite level, you can ask the same question. You can do this in a coffee chat. Most people will say yes to a 15 minute coffee chat because most people are too afraid to ask. You can set up a coffee chat and start to evaluate and say, hey, I want to build a stronger presence in this organization. I want to contribute on a larger level where I can make impact. And I'm starting with just doing a general audit of my brand. And most people will be honest with you. And when you ask that one question, what you can do is compare what you thought you knew against what people are actually saying. And that gives you a gap. Right? If you have a gap, it gives you something to work towards and you can use that as a follow up. I noticed that I perceived myself as this and you perceive me as this and this is the gap. What strategies or what opportunities are available to help me to fill that gap. And then that way you have a strategy to fill that gap to get you more visibility and give you the answers that you are not assuming. Right? The answers you get matter of fact, direct answers. Because you're asking directly how you're perceived versus assuming that you're perceived a certain way.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

No, I love it. And I have more so many questions about that. I'm trying to be polite, not talk over the guest. That's common dynamic. So question. Okay. In our world a lot of people are inauthentic and it's very. And where at work people wear a lot of masks. I remember I sent one of my report to a senior leader and I said like, I told her to ask a couple of questions. It was similar to your questions. And the person gave like fluffy feedback that didn't mean anything. And she took notes and she took it very seriously. And then I looked at all the feedback and I was like, I was, I was a pop. So how do you press? Because a lot of people don't want to be on the hook. Some people want to be liked and, and then give the negative feedback in the calibration rules. So how do you double press such that the real feedback comes out? We want the dirt, only the dirt and we want the good feedback, but we want it through. We don't want people wearing masks giving us feedback. And then we never go. And you never go. You never get what you need to be able to develop that octopus drive and advance in the corporation.

[Chantelle Love]

Yeah, I love that question for a couple of reasons. And I think that, you know, many people have been in a space where they've worn a mask and, you know, I call it for me, I had the great unmasking like, four or five years ago where I was just like, I can't do it anymore. But what I realized in that question, when you ask, you will get feedback. It may be feedback that you like and that you may not like. And it makes me think of the book the Four Agreements. And one of the four agreements is not to take anything personally. And I think that that's a skill in itself to understand that if you're getting feedback that is not favorable to what you believe, don't internalize it. And I think that that's easier said than done. But you have to think of who really knows you. My family knows me intimately like no one else. No one will ever get the chantel love that my family gets at home. So if you feel like it's an attack on character or an attack on who you are, take a pause because you have to think of it from that perspective. The people you work with only know you for the duration of time that you've worked with them, not your entire life. So don't take it personally. And also, what I think about is people treat ChatGPT as like, you know, a child's toy. Like, they don't treat it the way that it should be treated to bring value to your personal brand, to bring value to your career. You know, people will plug in, how do I take the items in my refrigerator to make a meal? That's fine and all, but that's not the way that I would recommend using it. So if you're in a situation and I just coach one of my employees in Australia on this, if you're in a situation and your boss has given you some feedback that feels harsh or it feels difficult to digest, I would prompt ChatGPT and I would ask it to act as a career coach that has 20 years of experience and I'm working on receiving feedback to make me a better leader, a better employee, so that I can build fill in the blank. It could be build better character, build better business acumen, and to develop a strategy. And I will plug that in. And I would talk to ChatGPT as if it were my career coach.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

I love That a lot. I think it's great. But what if the feedback is fake feedback? People are afraid that you get angry at them and don't give you the right feedback. So how do you press the person such that you can get the real feedback that you need?

[Chantelle Love]

So some ways that I've done this before is if I believe that it's fake feedback, I would say, help me to understand, like, thank you for giving me that feedback. Can you help me to understand how you came to that conclusion? Or I would say, can you give me a few examples so that I can take them back and digest them and work on them? Or if this is happening before a meeting, I would send a meeting with an agenda item and I would ask two preparation questions. And I would say, in preparation for our conversation, these are the things that I would like to discuss in more detail. Can you prepare, you know, two to three examples or two to three talking points so that we can make the most out of this discussion? If that person is honest and transparent enough, they'll give you the truth. If they're not, I think we have another issue on. On our hands. So if it is someone who actually has the power to advance your career or terminate you, I would start to document feverishly and make sure that everything that I'm communicating is timestamped. And if you have trust with an HR partner, begin to document and have a paper trail with them as well. But if it is someone who has a ounce of, you know, integrity, they would be willing to expand on what was discussed in the conversation.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

That's good. No, because what I've seen. I'm Canadian, from Montreal, so people would give me. I have to translate Californian language because New York will give you very harsh feedback and you want to have a heart attack.

[Chantelle Love]

Yeah.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

But in California, everything sounds nice. Yeah, it's very nice for people. For people who want real feedback and the feedback doesn't come through, then they probably have to press and ask questions or even keep asking for feedback until the feedback comes. Or. I like that. What you suggested sending questions in advance and asking for examples such that the person can. You want to get to the truth of how you perceive. And I think sometimes it's been hard for certain populations and certain people. Oftentimes women and women of color get the real feedback that they need.

[Chantelle Love]

Yeah. Agree.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

Okay. I think that's amazing. So now you published this book, promote your damn self.

[Chantelle Love]

Yes.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

I want to hear more from you. Of. Like what? Like there's different ways to publish a book. There's Self publishing, there's hybrid publishing with high beat type of publisher, and then there's traditional publishing, which is like the Wiley, the Penguins, the big names. So which pattern have you chosen and why?

[Chantelle Love]

Yes, I self published and I decided to self publish. Promote your damn self intentionally. And what I mean by that is becoming a publisher means that I'm not only the author, I'm the publisher, which means I purchase my own ISBN, which means I own my rights, I keep my royalties. And in a world where too many people lease out their brilliance, I chose ownership intentionally. And the reason why this matters is because I don't look at promote your damn self is just the book. It's my intellectual property and it's a business asset that keeps working for me when I'm sleeping. And I think that the barrier to entry is so low now that anyone can be a publisher, which is great because it gives people the ability to monetize their intellectual property and their expertise. But when you decide to publish solely on a platform like Amazon and you use the ISBN from Amazon, if you don't read the fine print at the bottom of your agreement, that means that what people miss out on is that Amazon is the only place that you can publish the book, that you can sell the book because of the terms of agreement that they have. Now, if you decide to go and buy your own ISBN, which is only $150 through Balkerkey, you become a publisher, which means you can publish other books or other people's books if you choose. And you own all of the intellectual property, which means you can print the book and you can sell it anywhere that want. You can sell it out of your house, you can sell it on the moon if you want to.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

Okay, I will tell Jeff Bezos that.

[Chantelle Love]

Yeah, don't tell Jeff or Eli. Yeah, they may get an idea. Yeah.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

Of the moon and Mars. That's it.

[Chantelle Love]

Yeah, exactly. I'm not going to be surprised. Remember, you heard it first on this podcast.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

On this podcast, the Top 5% Method with Kathleen Jean Pierre and Chantelle.

[Chantelle Love]

Yes, yes, yes.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

And while we're at it, don't forget to follow, subscribe, share with your friends and write comments, talk, even if just write an emoji. Come on.

[Chantelle Love]

Exactly.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

Write one emoji on Spotify. Let's keep going. So you decided to self publish, promote your themselves because you want to. Yes, your intellectual property, but also what you've learned to be able to advance as a VP of customer success, a person after massively and a shakeup in your life. So this Is like your mini bible for yourself, but also to help share, spread the word with other people in need. That message you need to start promoting their brand such that they're ready if they will be a layout. And we've seen there's been like what, 85,000 layoffs so far this year. And I stopped counting, so I might be off.

[Chantelle Love]

Yeah, it's, it's insane. It is insane. And even speaking of the layoffs, you know, I've seen stats that says specific to black women over and that number is probably higher now. Well over 300,000 black women have been displaced. Is the words that they use. Laid off or reduction in force. And when I think about owning my intellectual property, even while holding an executive seat, what I want people to understand is as I say, promote your damn self. We find ourselves contributing to the greater good of these large corporations, companies and organizations. And when you think of a company or organization, at the core it is an entity that is ran by human beings for the most part. And what I learned in my experience is to never rent out your brilliance. Own it. Because what you don't own, you can't leverage. And if you understand that as just the simple way of being, the simple way of owning who you are, your brand, your intellectual property, you can fill in the blank. You will look at yourself so differently. You will look at what you're doing on a day to day so, so differently. But the reason why I say ownership is because my book has become my loudest ambassador. It's open doors.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

You got to tell me more like which doors did the open.

[Chantelle Love]

Yes. It's open doors to speaking gigs. It's open doors to allow me to do executive coaching. It's open doors to corporate contracts without me having to cold pitch the things that I did not know that a book can accomplish. And I will tell you that I learned a lot through this journey. And I'm going to tell you two mistakes that people make too as they publish a book so you don't make those mistakes. But what I learned is that my book I've done instead of selling the individual books I do that I've come to organizations and conferences and sold my book as a package. So I've sold packages of books to their entire audience in exchange for me speaking. Right.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

Instead of saying you're going to pay me $5,000.

[Chantelle Love]

Yes. You said you can buy worth of books.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

$5,000 worth of books.

[Chantelle Love]

Yes.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

And then what happens then?

[Chantelle Love]

What happens then is that my book becomes the only business card that people pay for that they never throw away. So they'll, they'll get the book, it'll be in their house. They may walk past it, flip through the book, they'll read something, they'll post about it, they'll tell their friends about it without me having to do anything in exchange, because that's my business card. And the two mistakes that I will say that people make when writing a book. Writing a book is not the hard part. Writing a book is the easy part. Actually, what is the hard part that I underestimated was once the book comes out, then what? Right, you have to market the book.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

Because it's not gonna sell itself.

[Chantelle Love]

That's when it really starts. You have to market the book, you have to talk about the book. You have to get on stages to tell people why they should buy.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

I haven't dropped one style because the topic is fascinating.

[Chantelle Love]

Yes.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

Over 90% of books sell fewer than a thousand copies. So you can make the math right. And it costs if you self publish. And you don't know that over 90% of books sell less than a thousand copies, probably not even break even. So there has to be a bigger purpose because there's different models. So tell us about marketing.

[Chantelle Love]

Yes. Yeah. So what I will say is that that stat was one of the alarming stats because you see all these New York best selling times and you assume and presume that you know you're able to sell 150,000 copies of your book, and I have not, so I will not pull the wool over your eyes. But what I have done was I was able to sell this year. October 18th will be the one year anniversary of my book launch. And I've already sold over a thousand book copies of my own within the first four months. So I would say that the marketing happened ahead of the book being sold. So when I decided to write the book, I shared it in communities. I solicited folks feedback, I got early reviewers and early writers, and I connected in every single community that I was a part of and had people champion and promote the book on my behalf. Podcasts are a really great way to talk about your book and promote your book because podcasts live forever and most people who listen to podcasts, they finish them. More than half of the people who listen to podcasts, they finish them. That doesn't happen when you're listening to someone, someone's audiobook. It doesn't happen when you're in an audience and listening to someone speak. So it's a really great vehicle to sell and promote your book. So what I decided to do was take advantage of those avenues and connect and pitch myself. And I have a whole pitch script on chapter eight on how to pitch to podcast host on how to get on podcast so that you can speak about your book, your product, or your service. But the marketing itself is a function of not just social media. That's not marketing. That's. That's not marketing. A lot of people think social media is marketing. It's getting your product in, then it's not necessarily your product. I'll retract that. Getting the transformation into the hands of the people that need it most. And that can be corporations, that can be organizations, that can be affinity groups, and really understanding the value that the book has on their, on their organization and look at it from their perspective, not yours as a business owner.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

So give me a little bit of like, so you talk about the marketing of a book. I want to summarize. First, it's like you requested feedback from people who would pre read your book and reviews. And then secondly, you would, would sell the book instead of selling services because then the book is selling itself because people would read it. And then you talked about corporations. So making sure the book solves a deep problem for a corporation because that, that way the corporation can become your customer. And then of course, you did some kind of like, did social media, but that was not it. Are there any tactics that are missing in terms of. I see a lot of authors come to our show and I have a lot of authors who are my friends as well.

[Chantelle Love]

Yes, yes. So I, I would say that those strategies work very nicely. But also, just because the book is valuable to you doesn't mean that the book is valuable to others. I've given out my absolute best chapter for free. Like the best of the best chapter for free. And after they've read that chapter, they're like, I need the book. Like, if this is that good, I want the book. So the chapter that I typically give away is how to monetize your expertise. And I teach people how to look at what they do in their nine to five and give them strategic ways to monetize it on stages. How to ask for a pay raise, how to negotiate a pay raise, how to pitch podcast host, how to start a company. If you decided to start a company without having to get an llc. I give that chapter away because I know that it's so valuable and I know that the creator economy is growing. I know that consultancies are growing as well, and people don't know where to start. So that chapter, the book in itself, the chapter in the book does the marketing for me.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

Wow, it's brilliant. I love it. And then for our audience, I want to talk about the other types of publishing as well. And before I do that. So Shantel, you sold a thousand books in the first four months, but where are you now after a year? How many have you sold?

[Chantelle Love]

About 4,500.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

Okay. So there's good growth in terms of being able to push it through. So there's different models. You're self publishing when you carry the most of the cost. There's hybrid publishing. So you can have a hybrid publishing house. There's different types of publishing house. We do that where normally you have the people marketing might be up to $10,000 but you can keep some of the rights versus the last part which is traditional publisher. So a couple of my friends are big, big influences. I'm talking about millions of followers. They're able to have advances of like 1 million, 1.3 million, 1.1 million for their book. And then other of my friends, they, they're still with big publishers but what they sell, they sell consulting tips.

[Chantelle Love]

Yes.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

So they go with, they have half a million consulting gigs based on their book. So people are chasing a different way. If we start with the big influencers, the influencers who have a million plus followers get a million dollar advance. That's one model where most of your money is upfront. You might not make more after that, but it's a sales job because they're going to give you the million dollar if you hit certain milestones and if you have an audience of a millionaire, they're likely going to be able to buy you a 20 broker off. Right. So that's going to happen. So that's the way they monetize it. They might not be interested in consulting stuff. My other girlfriend who has an amazing book, her, she doesn't want to become a New York time bestseller because those, those influencers are pulling after the New York Times. So she doesn't care about becoming a New York time bestseller. What she wants is to be able to get the book in the hands of the right people. And the half a million consulting gates such as different model, different value. Yes, right. And then the self publishing route is a bit more. What you're doing is so you're like the typical portfolio professional. So you have a day job which is you have customer success of your site and then you also have speaking engagements and then you have your book and then you have your coaching as well. So how Many figures as that has that been able to generate for you on a yearly basis just to help people because a lot of our listeners are interested and portfolio careers.

[Chantelle Love]

Yeah, I think that that is important to call out. And one of my superpowers is transparency. So I do own two different companies. So my company, Chantelle Love LLC is where my speaking, publishing and author business resides. And then I have a real estate business that's passive, where we have real estate, where we rent out across the US Our property. So going into this business, I will say that it was very different because my real estate business is now very passive and this is a very active business. And year one it was just trying to figure out like how to get my bearings before I even launched the book. Because even before the book comes out, you should be selling your book. And without the acumen and me leveraging my network and going through through YouTube University, my first year I made $24,000. And I mean this is my first year speaking, My first year selling the book. My first year really trying to understand the business platform and the business acumen of it all. And then my second year I was able to bring in about $77,000 in my business with less speaking engagements, less travel, and strategically positioning the book sales and bulk versus trying to sell one to one to consumers. So that's what that looked like. I got a bit smarter and I started to be unafraid to reach out to people who are doing it successfully to gain strategies. But that's what it looked like.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

Six figure in two years. But you became savvy. Then the next book, you didn't know how to get it and you're going to have the networks as well. That's amazing. And then what's your tip and trick to get those speaking engagements? A lot of people are like, I want to become a speaker passively. Well, I have my day job. What is the best approach to put people in confidence and hire you?

[Chantelle Love]

Honestly, when I think about speaking, most people are already speakers. Like if you've run a meeting or a kickoff, if you are a team leader, you are a speaker in your own right, but you're just not a speaker of your own business or your own organization. And for me, most of my speaking engagements actually come from communities, network and people that I already know and I think oftentimes. Let me take a step back. I started off doing everything the wrong way. And what I mean by that is I was submitting all of these pitches code I was applying to all of these speakers, like these call to speaker events, filling out all of these applications, and I've probably done hundreds of them and never landed one, if I'm being perfectly honest.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

Wow.

[Chantelle Love]

So that's another way it did not work for me. It may work for someone else, but what worked for me was leveraging the industry that I was in. And customer success is not like something that I click my heels about, but employee engagement is. So I started with the low lift where I would speak at industry conferences for free and get my recording, get my speaker reel up. And then I started to price myself in the speaking industry. So I started in the customer contact space, the customer service and customer success space, and I would speak on employee engagement as well as personal branding. So I've been doing that for a couple of years now, and I get paid to do that. And then I love speaking to women's organizations, and I'm a part of several of those women organizations, and many of the women in the organizations have referred me to paint speaking opportunities. Or I've asked, hey, you all know I'm speaking on XYZ or I have a speaker topic on the Enterprise Personal Branding Lab. Would you be okay with referring me to the training department or the head of learning and development of your organization and take those warm leads as opportunities to position the value and position the offer that I have. But most of it has come from the network. Most of it has come from people seeing me speak at industry events and asking me to come into their organization to speak as well.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

But you also have a podcast.

[Chantelle Love]

I'm starting my podcast, so it is coming out soon. The I Promoted My Damn Self podcast, where I will highlight readers from my book that have actually implemented the strategies from the book and have gained success. So that is coming out soon.

[Kathleen Jean Pierre]

It's so funny because this is a perfect segue to end our conversation. I think that's super important because I saw the Chantel Love show and I thought that was your podcast on YouTube. And I was like, oh, she's got a podcast.

[Chantelle Love]

Look at that. It's all about perception.